Being competitive in the Championship

how much more?

 

Double

 

Agreed. Pick it up, have a quick shufties, realise you haven't got the time, energy, inclination, or mental capacity, go do something else.

 

As always RR, thought provoking, comprehensive and a great stimulus for "debate". The problem on here, probably like every other football club forum, is that the discussion is always clouded by emotion.
We've had our disagreements in the past but on this occasion (and on others also!) I do agree with your assessment of where we're at.
Like you I would pay (double)more to watch my club which is this club and will forever be this club.
If I could afford it I would pay triple/quadruple the amount.
It's a bit of an unfair question however because there will be hundreds, possibly thousands, who are at their financial limit in buying at the current price.

 

Would you pay double in order to allow them to waste the money though?

 

It's also a silly question because it completely refuses to accept there are alternatives. Not only does it refuse to accept it but the person posing the question refused to even acknowledge the alternatives when they are out to him, instead asking the person who posed an alternative if he 'is a politician?'

 

I believe that they have signed young players with potential. They are on even longer contracts so that they can develop for even longer before we are forced to sell. Some we sell before they enter the final year of their contract, but that is life. I am patient. I believe in the plan. There is no other plan.

That summarises my position. I understand that others hold different views. I understand that others think there are better plans, but no-one can say where the money comes from to finance their plan. Until they do, I will stick with the only viable plan.

 

As an accountant can you tell me how much more it costs to sign 1 player for £2m on £10k a week than it does to sign two players for £1m each on £5k a week?

 

Fair play mate.

 

If you sign 2 players and 1 gets injured, you still have a player. If you sign 1 player and 1 gets injured you have no-one. It is called, putting all your eggs in one basket, and it is not recommended.

 

The CEO of Barnsley FC stated that we have too many players. The manager of barnsley FC has also complained we have too many players.

We've sent out 6 players on loan this season including 2 first team wingers. When was the last time we had so many wingers that we could afford to send two of them out on loan? Also what use is buying them if they're out on loan when someone gets injured? Its no use putting your eggs in 5 baskets if you give 4 of them away.

Isn't it possible that we have too many players?

Players who can play on the wing at Barnsley this season

Green
Thiam
Thomas
Brown
Wilks
Ritzmaier
Odour
Jordan Williams
Motley henry

I'm sure I've missed more too

 

Very much the philosophy of the Robins era. When we were a solid, midtable Champ side.

 

There are a few reasons why players go out on loan. They may be young and not yet be ready for first team football at the level the team are playing, but you want them to gain experience at a lower level. You may have changed Coach, and the new Coach does not fancy the player for the system or the strategy that he intends to play. The team may be playing in a higher league, and a player who was in the team in the previous season is not considered good enough to play in the first team this season. The player's wages will be paid by the loan club, so he is not costing the club anything.

You sort which of our loans fall into which category.

 

I understand exactly what the figures represent, being a Chartered Accountant by profession. I have also previously worked on a finance review for a Championship level club in which I helped draft a business plan for them, and have seen the inner workings of a football club far closer than most, including attending their Board meetings and reviewing player contracts (both eye-opening experiences).

The figures you quoted were largely irrelevant to the post I made, for which the general point was that you don't need to fund continual losses as a Championship club, and describing a model under which our club could be run which would give us the best chance of achieving both aims, which also highlighted where we currently fail in this regard. The points made still stand - if you have limited funds you find ways to maximise the value of your individual investment decisions. We are currently failing to do this and, as you've subsequently pointed out in the discussion re Pinnock, we've also advertised to the outside world that we'll sell a player at pretty much any cost if he's in the final year of his contract and turns down a new deal, thus allowing other clubs to take advantage of this in any transfer dealings. Not exactly an optimal strategy to adopt, IMO. I accept the general logic of trying to get value for players as their contracts expire, but applying a black and white approach in that way, and sticking blindly to it regardless, doesn't result in the best decisions.

Ultimately, managing cashflow is far more critical for football clubs than their reported profits and losses, particularly in the way that player contracts are capitalised and amortised, which means that player trading accounts look very different to the cashflow impact of transfer fees which are paid in instalments. I did a review of the latest BFC company accounts when they were published, which is on here somewhere, and it was actually difficult to work out the status of the recent transfer business from them, although IIRC, the bulk of it was visible in the relative movement of debtors and creditors vs the comparatives.

The two examples I gave you were of clubs who had very obviously managed to get promoted to the Premier League without chucking stupid amounts of money at the playing squads, relative to others, primarily via outstanding coaches getting the most out of limited resources. They currently represent the most recent examples of this type of success. It is entirely feasible for BFC to adopt a similar approach to establish themselves as a stable Championship club and build from there. Look at our relative fortunes compared to Millwall since we beat them in the playoff final for another example of the type of progress I'm talking about.

We've clearly gone backwards as a club under the new owners. In an earlier post you said that we're operating the same model now as the one we had under Patrick Cryne, which is not the case. We've taken than basic model and stripped out the underlying (very fundamental) requirement to attempt to be competitive in the division we're playing in, in favour of an almost entirely formularised approach to generating player profits, broken only once since they took over when they signed Solbauer. In doing so, we've become blind to the fact that the impact of whatever theoretical profits the spreadsheet approach generates for you are diminished when you're content as a club to chuck half your annual income away by surrendering meekly to relegation each time you get promoted.

As for the other question which you are now trying to get people to focus on, the reason no-one answered this is that it was overshadowed by you stating, as fact, the incorrect assertion that an owner had to "be prepared to fund huge losses over a long period of time", which is the point everyone picked out to challenge. The answer to this question for me is that my chosen investment as a supporter of BFC is directly correlated to the expectations I have for the club to try to achieve beyond its means. I can't set a figure on it, as there are a huge amount of variables to this, but I can safely say that a continuation of the misguided management we've seen from the ownership will cut it dead pretty quickly.

I can only provide you with my experience from the current season. After Stendel's sacking, I was so angry that I had no desire to use my season ticket for a number of games (again well documented already on this board). I had started to go back to games prior to lockdown, but my decision on a new season ticket for next season was very much subject to how the Board set the pricing and timing of renewals. I can safely say that if there'd been an early bird renewal window ending in April at similar pricing levels to recent seasons, I would not have renewed because this season has been such an infuriating experience from a Board with zero ambition to compete. As it happened, Coronavirus changed the landscape for everything and the offering of a cheap season ticket for next year was one I felt I could take a chance on. Again, there would have been zero chance of me renewing if I'd somehow let the early-bird window pass and would have to renew at full price.

So currently, my 'price elasticity' as a supporter is as restricted as it has ever been. In fact, I don't think I've ever previously considered whether or not I would renew. It was only ever a question of when and how much. This year, only the discounted price of £250 has kept me as a season ticket holder for another season. As for next season, I have no idea, but I will fundamentally need to see evidence that the ownership have the same ambitions as I do, and at present I'd say we are as far apart on that as it's possible to be.

 

My opinions:

The question asked in the OP is not a silly question, it is a hypothetical question. Here is my answer.

I am not prepared to pay double for my season ticket. Not because the extra money would necessarily be wasted (although some may well be, given the way The Plan operates). I simply believe that ticket prices are already grossly over-priced. Less so at BFC than other clubs, but over-priced nonetheless.

However, even if that wasn't my main bugbear, I still wouldn't want to increase my investment. There are no guarantees in football. We could all triple our investment and the club could still fall short. There may be no success. Relegation could still be the outcome. It's perhaps less likely, but the possibility exists. So it's a No from me.

I admit that I struggle with ideas for alternative ways of running the club. I know what I'd like (442, centre forward, nippy striker, creative midfield, exciting wingers, physical centrebacks, experience all down the spine). How to get there is the problem. Without a detailed analysis of our player's fees and wages, I'd just be guessing.

That said, I do believe we wasted some of the money in our transfer dealings. Walton may not have been quite ready to be our first choice in August but he could have taken the bench spot. We didn't need Rads and Collins, one of them would have been ok. The plan is what it is, but it could be actioned a little better.

There are 29 players listed on the Player Of The Season voting page, plus a couple that don't make the list (Jordan Green is one, can't remember the other). That feels excessive to me, even allowing for injury cover. Less is more IMHO.

Final point. Goats have thick skins. Not only do I not find Red Rain's tone condescending, I actually find his posts to have a wry underlying humour.

That's all, folks.

 

One question. Miller???

 

In a nutshell. What utter folly!

 

The best way to increase match day income is to get more fans, rather than ask for more from existing fans. The best way to increase profit from player sales is to hold out for maximum fees possible, which I don't think happened with Pinnock and Moore in particular.

The two are linked as well. If you keep players for longer and gain more value, you have a better team on the pitch, and more are likely to want to watch.

As for the theory of they have to go if they're not happy. I have some sympathy for that, but it's not a blanket rule for all. Hourihane put in a match winning performance against Leeds, while he was due a medical at Villa. Watkins and Scowen both played out their contracts when they'd have liked to leave in Jan '17, and neither let us down in the second half of that season. It was pretty clear last January that Davies wouldn't be here this season, and he certainly didn't let us down. On the flip side, can easily see why Winnall had to go. This is where the board need to let the head coach give some judgement.